The Present Age

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The Present Age Weekly Recap: February 4, 2022
www.readtpa.com
TPA Weekly Recap

The Present Age Weekly Recap: February 4, 2022

Gold cubes, not-your-grandpa's Newsweek, silence from the free speech crowd, and recommendations to get your weekend going.

Parker Molloy
Feb 4, 2022
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The Present Age Weekly Recap: February 4, 2022
www.readtpa.com

Welcome to the weekly recap. In this post, I’ll be linking to my work from the week, sharing some stories from others I thought were interesting, and providing a few casual thoughts on [gestures at everything]. If you’d like to receive this weekly email ONLY, please go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck every box except “TPA Weekly Recap.” If you don’t want to receive the weekly recap, leave all boxes except “TPA Weekly Recap” checked. (This format and disclaimer was inspired by Ty Burr’s Watch List)


An artist installed a weird $11 million gold cube in Central Park. In honor of the big dumb Central Park Cube, please accept this GIF I made in AfterEffects as a token of my appreciation. Download it here.

This was a big we(e/a)k for the world of media.

On Monday, I wrote about the predictable silence on Republican efforts to ban books about race and LGBTQ issues in classrooms and libraries (both school and public).

The Present Age
The "free speech" crowd sure is quiet about GOP efforts to ban books and criminalize dissent.
Last June, in one of my first newsletters, I wrote about free speech. Specifically, I wrote about Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, and his assault on it. (The piece was initially sent out as a paid-only newsletter, but I’ve removed the paywall…
Read more
a year ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Parker Molloy

On Tuesday, I sent out a newsletter detailing the fall of Newsweek, illustrating how it went from respectable magazine to right-wing fever swamp by comparing how it used to refer to right-wing operative Jack Posobiec (“…an ‘alt-right’ internet activist best known for the ‘pizzagate’ conspiracy theory that falsely suggested Hillary Clinton ran a sex trafficking ring from a Washington, D.C., pizza joint”) to handing him the publication’s large platform for a dubious op-ed about China.

The Present Age
Newsweak
Newsweek is not really Newsweek, and it hasn’t been for a long time. When I hear the word “Newsweek,” my mind conjures an image of the magazine rack inside a Borders bookstore circa 2003. As smaller magazines jumped in and out of stock, opened and closed in the blink of an eye, industry stalwarts like…
Read more
a year ago · 22 likes · 8 comments · Parker Molloy

And on Wednesday, I bid CNN president Jeff Zucker a not-so-fond farewell.

The Present Age
Hit the road, Jeff
Hello and happy Wednesday, dear readers, My phone buzzed. I looked down to see a push notification from The New York Times: If you’re reading this, you probably know that I’m something of a news connoisseur who has long …
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a year ago · 21 likes · 2 comments · Parker Molloy

The Present Age is a reader-supported publication. The best way to support my work is to become a paid subscriber.


Posts from others that I want to draw attention to:

Over at The Uprising, Hunter Walker continues his great reporting on all things related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The Uprising
Why Trump’s Torn Papers And Speech Drafts Matter
The Uprising is a newsletter dedicated to exclusive reporting and analysis on the January 6 attack and its aftermath. If you want to stay on top of this story, please sign up! President Trump was up to his old habits in documents turned over to the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A Washington Post report…
Read more
a year ago · 2 likes · Hunter Walker

On a related topic, with former President Donald Trump’s announcement that he may pardon people who tried to overthrow the government if he runs and wins the election in 2024, I highly recommend checking out Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s piece about how authoritarians use pardons to gain and accumulate power.

Lucid
Pardon Me: From Il Duce to Trump, Authoritarians Use Pardons to Increase Their Power
"If I run, and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly...And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly." Watching former President Donald Trump's Jan. 29 speech at a rally in Texas, one can sense his anger and his rising desperation…
Read more
a year ago · 46 likes · 97 comments · Ruth Ben-Ghiat

And on the topic of the ongoing brouhaha happening over at Spotify regarding Joe Rogan, I recommend checking out Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day post featuring Max Collins from the band Eve 6 (you know, the “heart in a blender” song guy). It shines a light on some of the other big issues with streaming services like Spotify (namely, that a lot of artists, Eve 6 included, get screwed out of a lot of money).

Garbage Day
Ah! The cognitive dissonance, it hurts!
Eve 6’s Max Collins On Where We Supposed To Go After Spotify On Monday, I waded into the Joe Rogan/Spotify fight and the piece got a lot of attention! My Twitter mentions are still jam-packed with either conservative men with under 100 Twitter followers telling me that I have Trump derangement syndrome or liberal boomers fighting with them, calling Joe …
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a year ago · 12 likes · Ryan Broderick

That’s it for this week! Please leave any questions, comments, feedback, or recommendations (definitely recommendations) in the comments below. Have a good weekend, everyone!

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The Present Age Weekly Recap: February 4, 2022
www.readtpa.com
1 Comment
ranglecat
Feb 7, 2022Liked by Parker Molloy

That gold cube thing really pissed me off. The US has entered what many are calling "The New Guilded Age" and some asshole just plops a useless hunk of metal worth $11 million in the middle of New York City. Who's "stability and endurance" is that really speaking to? Probably not the 80,000 or so New Yorkers who are homeless and could use a share of that $11 million.

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